After releasing three albums plus some singles and EP's in the first three years after I am Oak's debut album On Claws back in 2010, and a new look on older material (which resulted in Ols Songd), I am Oak's Thijs Kuijken took a step back to write new material for a fifth full length-album that is now OUR BLOOD. It has been carefully crafted by Kuijken and contains the first new I am Oak songs since 2012's Nowhere or Tammensaari.
This slow process of constructing the album ran alongside the slow process of coming to grips with a personal loss, which the album centers around. Kuijken explains: "The album revolves around an impending loss, seeing it come in closer and closer, experiencing it, being confused by it and subsequently dealing with it. It explores how the death –of either a bond or a body– is a part of life and how it can also go beyond sorrow alone".
This album OUR BLOOD gives this loss a place, to have it act as a base for something new and positive. It is about knowing night comes after day, but day comes after night again also.
OUR BLOOD has a new sound, that is more mature and less folky than the previous releases, and one that everyone who has seen the band perform over the last couple of years (from USA to Ukrain and from Best Kept Secret festival NL to Tartu Indiefest Estland) will recognize. I Am Oak’s new album OUR BLOOD is their fifth full-length album was released on the 26th of February 2016.
Press on Our Blood
★★★★ - de Volkskrant (NL)
★★★★ - Music Maker (NL)
"8/10" CLEEFT (NL)
"8/10" Melodie & Rhythmus (DE)
"8,4/10""Our Blood cuts, captivates and never lets go" – Daan’s Muziekblog (NL)
"8/10" Muzine (NL)
"8/10" "Beautiful and intimate"- PlatoMania (NL)
"Gentle and beautiful" - The Four oh Five (UK)
"Rock solid comeback" – OOR (NL)
"Bitte einfach bewegungslos liegen bleiben und zuhören." – Intro (DE)
"A very special monument" – 3voor12Utrecht (NL)
"Brutally honest folk that strikes deep into the heart" - Rifraf (BE)
